MOD: What inspires you now?
BW: Mother Nature is the best landscape designer. Whether it’s going for a hike or lying at the beach, I get inspiration from the natural world. Creative fields like painting, fashion, and architecture might also spark an idea, be it a colour or material.
MOD: That’s interesting, drawing inspiration from two-dimensional painting for a physical space.
BW: Yes. Looking at some of the paintings we have in the studio, they’re all about light and shadow. Which relates to what we do.
We’re always considering how a garden changes throughout the day – how light interacts with living things. Gardens are all about movement, and light plays a real part in that.
MOD: How do you design for a changing climate?
BW: That’s probably the hardest part of our job. We’re seeing longer stretches of hot weather, and more recently, heavy downpours of rain.
We need to plan for plants that can handle a heat wave while also looking beautiful in winter when there’s a lot of rain. We also need to look at how we can capture water and move it through a site or store it for later. It’s a real challenge.